Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether local authorities will receive central Government funding for the additional administrative costs incurred in the rollout of the £144 million discretionary fund for vulnerable people and individuals on low incomes that do not pay council tax or that pay council tax for properties in Bands E-H.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The Government will provide new burdens funding to local authorities to cover reasonable administrative costs incurred in delivering the council tax rebate scheme and the associated discretionary fund.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether additional administrative costs incurred by local authorities in the implementation of the £150 council tax rebate will be a new burdens requirement.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
The Government will provide new burdens funding to local authorities to cover reasonable administrative costs incurred in delivering the council tax rebate scheme and the associated discretionary fund.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing legislative proposals to include butter knives in the exemptions in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Exemption) Order 1996.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Tackling knife crime is a priority and the Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities.
Section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 created the offence of selling any knife, knife blade, razor blade, axe or any other article which has a blade or which is sharply pointed and which is made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, to a person under the age of 18. In Scotland, the word ‘axe’ has been added to this list of prohibited items. Originally the age limit was 16 and this was raised to 18 by the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers have been granted permission to work as a result of the time taken for her Department process their case in last 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office are unable to state how many asylum seekers have been granted permission to work as a result of the time take taken for the Department to process their cases in the last 12 months as the data is only held on paper case files or within the notes sections of the Home Office's databases. Therefore, the number of asylum seekers granted permission to work is not held in a reportable format.
However, the Home Office do publish data on the number asylum applications awaiting an initial decision or further review and can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics, Asylum applications awaiting a decision, by duration:
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claims have been awaiting a decision from her Department for over 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does publish data on how many initial asylum applications are awaiting a decision and by duration , but only up to and including June 2021. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics:
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claims are awaiting resolution as at 16 September 2021.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office does publish data on how many initial asylum applications are awaiting a decision and by duration , but only up to and including June 2021. This data can be found at Asy_04 of the published Immigration Statistics:
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
What steps his Department plans to take to learn from the findings of the National Audit Office report entitled Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme published on 8 September 2021.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
We are considering the National Audit Office report and its recommendations, which recognise the scheme was designed as a short-term economic stimulus. This will inform existing and future schemes, as part of our £9 billion commitment to improving energy efficiency.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to the Answer of 8 September 2021 to Question 903227 on Ports: Scotland, what additional resources have been deployed by the Border Force at Scottish ports since the Northern Ireland Protocol came into effect on 1 January 2021.
Answered by Lord Jack of Courance
Information relating to the wider staffing in the Home Office including Border Force, for the year 2019-20 is below:
Home Office annual report and accounts: 2019 to 2020
The Home Office Annual reports and accounts for 2020 to 2021 will be published in due course.
Border Force regularly reviews its capacity plans and resources. Redeploying and recruiting staff where necessary to help meet and maintain service standards for individual services.
Border Force is confident that resources to meet anticipated overall operational requirements are in place with Border Force recruiting sufficient additional frontline staff and continuing to build staffing levels during 2020/2021.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to help people without a broadband connection prepare for the closure of the public switched telephone network in 2025.
Answered by Matt Warman
The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is privately owned, and the process for its closure is industry-led. The PSTN closure will be undertaken in a phased approach with areas shutting down over the coming years with the final exchange expected to turn off in 2025.
While PSTN withdrawal is an industry-led process, the Government and Ofcom are working together to ensure consumers and sectors are protected and prepared for the withdrawal process.
The PSTN network will be replaced with new All-IP technology - such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This technology is higher quality and more reliable than the existing PSTN network and will guarantee a better quality of service. All-IP requires a stable internet connection of approximately 0.5Mbps. Where it is not possible to deliver such a service to a premise, the service provider will be required to offer an alternative technological solution - such as Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SoGEA).
Ofcom has a statutory duty to further and protect the interest of consumers, including those who are vulnerable. As part of this duty, Ofcom has rules in place, known as general conditions, which all providers must follow, that mandate communication providers to have procedures and policies in place to identify and support vulnerable consumers.
Ofcom has also published a Vulnerability Guide for providers, setting out their expectations and good practice on how vulnerable telecoms consumers should be supported. This includes steps providers can take to identify vulnerable consumers, and an expectation that all providers implement specialist teams in order to provide extra support.
The telecoms industry - via the Broadband Stakeholder Group - have been collaborating on this issue, and in June 2020 launched a consumer-facing website as a resource to inform the public of the process. This website was developed with the support of telecoms companies, Ofcom and DCMS and is funded by TechUK. (https://www.futureofvoice.co.uk/)
If an individual is concerned about the PSTN withdrawal process, or would like further information, they should contact their telecoms service provider who will be able to provide specific support.
Asked by: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many and what proportion of the staff of his Department are politically restricted.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Data is provided in the table below for those Civil servants in “the politically restricted” category. As set out in the Civil Service Management code this is members of the Senior Civil Service and civil servants at levels immediately below the Senior Civil Service, plus members of the administrative and European Fast Stream Development Programmes.
DCMS Grade | Headcount | Proportion of total workforce |
Permanent Secretary | 1 | 0.06% |
Director General | 4 | 0.22% |
Director | 28 | 1.57% |
Deputy Director | 89 | 5.01% |
Grade 6 | 201 | 11.30% |
Grade 7 | 602 | 33.86% |
Fast-streamer (Grade B) | 16 | 0.90% |
*This data reflects officially published 2020/21 data submitted to the Cabinet Office Annual Civil Service Employment Survey (ACSES) report. Fast-stream numbers include all fast-streamers at DCMS not just those on administrative and European schemes.